Wisconsin state legislators should greenlight a new grant program supporting migration from the state’s “woefully outdated” emergency call system, Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association Executive Director Bill Esbeck said Wednesday during an Assembly State Affairs Committee hearing. The committee mulled AB-356, which directs the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs to award grants that reimburse next-generation 911 (NG-911) costs of ILECs acting as originating service providers. Covered costs would include IP-based transport, database management and the purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment. The bill would limit the department from awarding more than one grant per ILEC per fiscal year. The state’s current 911 fund, which gets revenue from a 75-cent monthly charge on customer bills, will provide enough money but doesn’t allow cost recovery after the NG-911 transition, said Esbeck. He said that five of 72 Wisconsin counties have connected to the state’s emergency services IP network, but ILECs in those places have yet to cut over to it. Wisconsin’s 2023-2025 biennial budget restricted diverting 911 fee revenue for unrelated purposes, Esbeck noted. In 2009, the state renamed its 911 money as a “police and fire protection fund” and diverted cash to a general fund, he said. The new grant program would support NG-911 only, said AB-356 sponsor Rep. Tony Kurtz (R). While future legislators or governors could change state law to resume 911 fee diversion, “I think everybody in the state understands how important this is,” he said. “We’d be very foolish to change that.”
AT&T should receive carrier of last resort (COLR) relief in parts of California that have at least one voice alternative, economist Mark Israel said in testimony AT&T submitted Tuesday at the California Public Utilities Commission (docket A.23-03-003). Letting the carrier discontinue plain old telephone service (POTS) “would be economically efficient, benefit consumers, and serve the public interest,” he said. “A decades-old COLR obligation mandating indefinite support of a declining legacy technology is economically inefficient, particularly in the face of widely available alternatives based on superior technologies, including mobile and” VoIP. The COLR obligation “ties up scarce resources that could better serve consumers elsewhere,” added Israel. “COLR distorts competition because it is applied to a single firm in the market, imposing costs that weaken that firm competitively, thereby reducing the competitive pressure that firm can apply to other firms, thus harming the entire market.” In separate testimony, AT&T Vice President-Global Public Policy Michael Alarcon said maintaining the old landline network gets tougher every day. “With fewer and fewer POTS customers, economies of scale have been evaporating,” he wrote. “It is increasingly challenging for the revenues derived from the remaining POTS customers to support the operating costs. A significant amount of outside plant, transport, and switching facilities are necessary to serve even a handful of customers -- and these facilities require ongoing repair and maintenance.” COLR relief would free resources for upgrading networks to fiber and 5G wireless, he said. The CPUC plans eight hearings on AT&T's applications for COLR and eligible telecom carrier (ETC) relief (see 2312040071).
A Frontier Communications rate case in Arizona can move forward, Arizona Corporation Commission staff said. Frontier’s application and schedules were filed Aug. 30, covered Arizona's White Mountains region and met the commission’s sufficiency requirements, Utilities Division Telecom and Energy Chief Barbara Keene wrote to the company Monday. Separately, staff asked an administrative law judge to set a procedural schedule that would extend into next fall. Under that schedule, staff and intervenor direct testimony on competitive classification and nonessential service determinations would be due May 3; their testimony on service cost, rate design and state USF issues would be due May 31. Frontier’s rebuttal would be due July 26, staff and intevenors’ rebuttal Aug. 23 and Frontier’s rejoinder Sept. 6. Staff suggested a prehearing conference Sept. 11 and a hearing Sept. 23. “Staff believes that the proposed schedule is reasonable in light of the potential number of issues presented in this case,” it said. ALJ Julia Matter in a Tuesday order scheduled a teleconference for Jan. 2 at 10 a.m MST to discuss procedure and next steps (docket T-03214A-23-0250). Frontier is the only company receiving Arizona USF high-cost support. The commission earlier decided to delay possible sweeping USF changes due to the upcoming Frontier rate case (see 2303160069). Commissioners declined to raise USF contribution rates earlier this month (see 2312050032).
Don’t let anyone say a Wisconsin privacy bill is moving too fast, state Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R) said during a livestreamed hearing Tuesday. The Wisconsin Senate Consumer Protection Committee heard testimony on Zimmerman’s AB-466 and Senate companion SB-642 but didn’t vote. The Assembly last month unanimously passed AB-466, which would allow consumers to request and delete information that certain data controllers hold (see 2311150039). Versions of the bill appeared in three straight legislative sessions, said Zimmerman. “That’s six years of my life.” Zimmerman said he wants to avoid a state privacy law “tapestry.” Instead, the Republican hopes to push Congress to make a good federal law, he said. Wisconsin’s bill is similar to Virginia’s “pretty darn good” privacy law, he added. The main difference is that, in Wisconsin, consumer complaints wouldn’t go to the state AG, Zimmerman said. Instead, they would be handled by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, an existing state agency that seems more suited to the task, he said. The AG would remain the Wisconsin bill’s sole enforcer, however. BSA|The Software Alliance supported the bill during Tuesday's hearing. In the absence of Congress approving a national privacy bill, “and I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon,” Wisconsin should be the 14th state with a privacy law, Head of State Advocacy Matthew Lenz said. The bill "imposes strong obligations on all companies that handle consumer data," while being "interoperable" with other states' laws, he said.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission delayed a hearing planned Wednesday in its Windstream 911 outage probe due to the illness of “a key staff member,” a PSC spokesperson said Tuesday. The commission rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 28 at 9 a.m. CST. The commission plans a hearing Jan. 4 on Lumen’s recent 911 outage (see 2312060060).
New Jersey lawmakers advanced a social media bill for minors requiring age verification and parental consent. The Assembly Health Committee voted 8-1 Monday for A-5750, sending it to the floor. Another committee sent comprehensive data privacy legislation to the floor the same day (see 2312180067). The Computer and Communications Industry Association opposed A-5750. It would hurt marginalized and vulnerable communities by requiring companies to collect a lot more data on users, said CCIA. A proposed private right of action would lead to many frivolous lawsuits, the industry group added.
Washington state will weigh AI legislation next year, Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) said Tuesday. Ferguson worked with state Sen. Joe Nguyen (D) and state Rep. Travis Couture (R) on prefiled bills (SB-5838 and HB-1934) to create an AI task force, the AG office said. The task force will convene industry, civil liberty groups, AI experts and others to consider risks and benefits and make recommendations to the legislature, it said. “As we celebrate [AI's] benefits, we must also ensure we protect against the potential for irresponsible use and unintentional consequences,” Ferguson said.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will soon issue a draft order to implement a 2023 state law that continues until Sept. 1 subsidies from Colorado's high-cost support mechanism (HCSM) to a dozen rural telecom providers. After nobody appeared during a virtual hearing Monday to comment, Administrative Law Judge Harris Adams said he would “take the matter under advisement and issue a written recommended decision.” In an Oct. 25 NPRM (docket C23-0730), the PUC proposed extending HCSM support from Dec. 1 and establishing that in 2024 the commission will allocate 100% of the money collected, “minus the Commission’s administrative costs and distributions to wireline and wireless rural telecommunication providers.”
The Utah Public Service Commission has an "exceedingly transparent" process for determining Utah USF (UUSF) distributions and surcharges, the PSC said in a Monday order. The commission responded to CTIA’s call for greater transparency, while nearly doubling the surcharge to 71 cents per access line, from 36 cents, effective Dec. 29. The commission proposed the increase last September (see 2309200047). CTIA complained in comments Friday that the Utah Department of Public Utilities (DPU) didn’t sufficiently explain the purpose for additional funding “or whether such surcharges are prudent and necessary.” The wireless industry association said, “Appropriate transparency is particularly crucial for Utah’s wireless consumers because of the significant economic burden they bear supporting the UUSF.” The Utah commission “respect[s] CTIA’s concerns around transparency but note[s] they focus exclusively on one action request response issued by the DPU,” the order said. “That filing by the DPU was a meaningful, but single, component of a fulsome and transparent regulatory process that involved both the DPU, the PSC, and multiple opportunities for any interested person to provide comments.”
The California Public Utilities Commission set deadlines on Blue Casa Telephone’s application to relinquish its eligible telecom carrier (ETC) designation and discontinue local exchange and interexchange services in AT&T and Frontier Communications territory. Frontier should respond to the application by Jan. 2, said assigned Commissioner Darcie Houck’s scoping memo Friday (docket A.23-09-006). Then, opening testimony is due Jan. 29 and replies Feb. 12, it said. Any joint motion for evidentiary hearing should be filed by Feb. 16, the memo said. Responding earlier to the application, AT&T said it would need about 10 weeks to migrate customers if it's ordered to be a default carrier for customers who haven’t made other selections.